Fucking yes! Fucking yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees! Three and a half fucking years I’ve held on to this screenshot!
People laughed at me when I saved that Tweet from 2020. Laughed at me! Of course, back then it had only been two years since the release of their incredible debut album ‘what people call low self-esteem is really just seeing yourself the way other people see you*’, a furious and intoxicating powder keg of intense self-hatred infectiously narrated. All us ‘Bedheads’ ate it the fuck up, because we are all reprehensible vultures. We had tasted the blood of Shannon Taylor as they eviscerated themselves for our entertainment, greedily sucking it down as they slit their wrists above our mouths and let it flow so beautifully down our gullets. Yum yum yum yum. Please, Mommy, can we have some more?
(*if you’re new to ABSIB – first of all welcome! You’re gonna have quite a time! – then be prepared for that type of talk, it’s basically the running theme)
I saved it so that I could make fun of fans like the person on the left. “lol”, I had planned to say, “Why do fans today feel so entitled to an artist’s emotional labour?”, then I would have linked it back to Marxism and encouraged people to join the Communist Party. Y’know, my usual shit? I had already written the post in my head for when the second album inevitably came out later in 2020. Maybe in 2021, but an artist such as ABSIB taking three years to record an album was pretty much unheard of. Shit, then maybe 2022?? No?? Dude, have they, like, died or something??
I began by mocking the guy on the left. But I eventually became them. Yes yes, ABSIB, we’ve all had our jokes now, very funny. Hey, @screamomoney, very funny reply. Glad that I saved that in the screenshot. Shame your X formally known as ‘X Formally Known as Twitter’ even more formally known as ‘Twitter’ account no longer exists. Did you criticise Israel? You know that’s dangerous to do in this new free speech utopia. But, no, joking aside, where’s my awakebutstillinbed album?? It’s… it’s been a long time now! N…n…n…
Nooooo!!! You can’t just take over two years to write and record an album!!!You have to put out the follow up releaserino noooo!!!!!
I even pretty much have that same shirt.
Rationally, I of course understood their reasoning. Depression? Yeah, understand what is usually categorised as that, and could even be said to suffering myself. Depression doesn’t actually exist and is a normal response to the stresses of capitalism, but let’s continue using the word as a shorthand. Lack of inspiration? Yeah, again, rationally I completely understand that. One of the reasons that I often only write one or two (or no) posts on this blog between the scheduled albums of the year is because I’m just not inspired to write anything that often. Sure, this blog will one day just turn into daily CM Punk updates, but that isn’t scheduled to launch until June ’25, so until then a lack of inspiration means a lack of content.
But emotionally? Emotionally my reaction was… different. Just release the freaking album! You know how little inspiration I have when I write up to 50 posts every December?? Fucking none! How much inspiration do you think I had for that National post I published this morning?? Sweet bubkiss! Yet, I’m sure you’ll all agree, the post was freaking amazing. Oh, what’s that, depression?? That’s your whole thing!! Just write about it!
Emotionally, I was a consumer, and Shannon Taylor’s artfully articulated emotional angst was a commodity that I was simply demanding more of. I put as much thought into the real human stress it would need as I would consider the anxiety required to produce a packet of Oreos. Gross. That’s capitalism that, y’know? Though I’d never openly admit it, there was a part of me that was thinking “Seriously, how hard is it to throw together a half hour guitar album??”
Well, ‘chaos take the wheel i am a passenger’ is not a half hour guitar album. It’s almost a hour long for a start, with many songs passing five, six and even eight minutes. And less superficially, it’s far from a quick, punchy screamalong with shredded verse/chorus/verse dopamine hits, euphoric anthems that nonetheless depict the lowest states of anxiety. This might have been what the fans wanted. Maybe it was what I wanted. It wasn’t the record that ABSIB wanted to make.
Do the people I care about care about me
bloodline
Or do they see what I see
I’m so tired of life on my knees
Begging them all, “please don’t leave”
‘chaos…’ finds Shannon Taylor in a superficially different place than the debut album. They’re a moderately successful music act now! They get to play shows to people and spread their music around the world! They even get to travel to Manchester, UK and briefly talk with Alex Franchise-Palmer about They Might Be Giants! They’re living the dream! Why do they still feel so incomplete! Throughout the album there is a running motif of a band constantly on tour, going city to city, country to country, meeting more and more people and adoring fans you briefly fall in love with (including me), only to have them pulled away from you as the wheel continues to turn. Another town, another buck, another bed, another setting to be lonely inside. The road they’re constantly being dragged along is just life, and the emptiness exists wherever you take yourself.
Musically, it’s a massive evolution from their debut, the five years between albums is evident in the very sound. Songs are more complex, more ambitious and even further away from traditional song structures than their debut. There are times where it threatens to be one of the greatest ‘Premo’ (prog & emo) albums ever. ‘chaos…’ is an incredibly ambitious record…
…an ambition that I’d argue isn’t 100% successful. As brilliant and as unexpected as the album is, I’d still say parts of it are far more admirable than they are incredible. There are songs that don’t quite justify their length, so parts of the album hint at overindulgence. And the sequencing is all over the place: placing the eight minute road at track two to risk completely overshadowing the perfect (album highlight) six minute opener?? Often, the songs aren’t as strong as the musical ideas are rich. Once they marry the songcraft of the first album with the unbound creativity of ‘chaos…’, they’ll fly. An emo epic along the lines of Black Mold by Prince Daddy & the Hyena but with the peerless lyrical imagery of Shannon Taylor? Nomnomnomnomnom! Give me nine minutes of your pain!! With all these new ideas and expanded ambition, the next album could be an alltimer.
Or, just don’t do a next album. To be honest, ‘chaos…’ is such a subtle and layered piece of work that I doubt I’d even have time to fully unravelled it in five years anyway. It’s a bit ridiculous to expect me to write a response after only living with it for two months, if we’re being totally honest. You can chill out now. Your work is done.
Take tour time. Open tour eyes. It’s still tour life.
[23.12.08 EDIT: ABSIB posted a Twitter thread soon after I posted that review which might have been referring to some of the things I said…? I’ll link to it here, right of response etc, though if it is in relation to this post then they’ve really misunderstood it. I very well may be ridiculously egotistical and ABSIB has no idea who the fuck I am]
[LATER ON 23.12.08 EDIT! See below]
Necessary Evil 
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